I added a new (relatively speaking, anyway) chess game to my OTB (over-the-board or face-to-face) section (found here). I played this one a few months ago at Microsoft, however I forgot all about it until I was cleaning up some files. The game was a G30, if I recall; I played white. Before uploading I let Fritz 8 analyze the game to help figure out where I went wrong.

Things were looking quite balanced up until move 20, where I played Rd1-d3. Fritz's evaluation went from 0.16 (virtually balanced) to -0.47 (a half-pawn advantage for black). At this point Fritz was looking at f4 as the strongest move (0.13) or even the more aggressive Rxd8+. I didn't expect Bruce to capture, but he did with Rxd3, gaining the momentum (-0.44).

I didn't realize how bad of a move this was at the time, but move 23. Rc1? was what did me in (Fritz places the game at -0.72). I lost the initiative, and now I was scrambling.

Up until move 29 the initiative went a tad further to Bruce, with an eval of -0.94. At our level of play, that's not much -- it's less than a pawn advantage. To turn that advantage into a win can be fairly difficult. 29. Kd2 followed by 32. f4? ended the game. As soon as the exchange happened, I realized that black had a clear advantage.

Bruce was a solid player -- as I went through the game, I was amazed that Fritz had not marked any of his moves as blunders! The game was amazing even-keeled (again, for our level). I haven't been playing much over the past couple of years, a grim reminder of that which goes unpracticed will atrophy.